LITTLETON, Colo. – Tom Mauser knows that something would be terribly wrong if he didn’t break down in tears at least once a week over his son’s murder in the Columbine High School massacre.

The tears still flow freely – and cathartically – for Mauser a year after the tragedy. Columbine students, parents and other residents of this Colorado town still feel a terror and sadness that are as fresh as on April 20, 1999.

That’s the day when Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris horrified the world by shooting and bombing their campus, slaughtering 12 schoolmates, a teacher and finally themselves in the bloodiest day in U.S. school history.

Fifteen-year-old Daniel Mauser was one of those killed, murdered as he tried to hide under a library table.

“I still have trouble getting over the thought of him being pinned under that table,” Mauser continued, fighting back tears. “I hear the bullets, the guns … and if I don’t have a good cry over my son every once in a while, that’s not healthy.”

It’s been a painfully slow recovery for the people of Littleton. For every step toward emotional stability, these suburban Denver residents have been dragged down by cruel reality.

* On Oct. 22, Carla Hochhalter – the mother of paralyzed Columbine student Anne Marie Hochhalter – walked into an Englewood, Colo., pawn shop. She asked to see a gun, loaded it with her own bullets, and blew her brains out.

* Time magazine hit the streets Dec. 20 with a cover story offering chilling details of Klebold and Harris’ murderous plans. The piece sent shockwaves through Columbine, with parents angry at Time for publishing the sensational account, and law-enforcement officials for leaking the information.

* Two Columbine sweethearts were shot to death at a local sandwich shop just before closing time on Feb. 13. The killer is still at large.

* The winter break started two days early – and first-semester finals were postponed – when a bored teen sent an Internet threat against the school last Dec. 16.

School officials have organized a week of carefully orchestrated events to mark the shooting’s one-year anniversary.

The campus will be off-limits to public and press, and student body president Mike Sheehan represented the prevailing Columbine view: Thanks for the good wishes, but leave us alone.

“We really want to thank the world,” Sheehan said. “But we kind of want it to be a private day.”

But even as this heartbroken town struggles to shed April 20 as its all-defining moment in history, individual stories of heroism – big and small – from that day continue creeping to light.